


The Fourteenth Century

by Haberdasher



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 14th Century, Angst, Angst and Feels, Disasters, Gen, Mass Death, Natural Disasters, Pandemics, Plague, Religious Discussion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 12:43:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21374347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haberdasher/pseuds/Haberdasher
Summary: Crowley ponders his place in the world as he watches humanity struggle through the Black Death.
Kudos: 16
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	The Fourteenth Century

There had been some scattered reports of plague in Asia, but nobody saw the plague epidemic that would eventually become known as the Black Death coming before its arrival. Once it began, however, priests and philosophers and other so-called experts were quick to come up with theories explaining its prevalence. One fairly common theory was that it was the work of Satan or his minions doing his bidding on Earth by lashing out against humanity.

Crowley had, in fact, taken credit for the Black Death and all the death and destruction it had caused down in Hell. He had gotten a commendation for it, even, after he’d explained that it was breaking down European society in more ways than one, after he’d gone into detail about how neighbors were turning against neighbors in their desperation, about how people were being blamed and persecuted for somehow causing others nearby to fall ill because nobody had a better explanation for how so much sickness could spread so fast.

Crowley hadn’t actually _done_ it, of course, but nobody down in head office had to know that.

In truth, the demon was almost as clueless as humanity in general seemed to be as to the true cause of the Black Death. It might well just be one of those things that happens over the centuries, a disaster entirely natural, a reminder that human life was fragile and tomorrow wasn’t guaranteed for anyone with a heartbeat.

But as a number of priests preached that the plague was God’s doing, a divine punishment for any number of possible misdeeds, Crowley began to wonder if they weren’t all onto something there.

Aziraphale would usually help clear up that sort of thing for him, but the angel was nowhere to be found, try as Crowley might. In hindsight, Crowley would be thankful for that--the conversation he’d hoped to have at the time was probably better not had, the questions he’d had better left unanswered--but at the time, it was immensely frustrating. Large chunks of cities were dying off in a matter of weeks, families were being extinguished and forgotten in the blink of an eye, and Crowley didn’t have the slightest idea _why_.

Some humans claimed that the plague was the end of the world; that much, as least, Crowley could dismiss without a second thought. There were _rules_ about how the end of the world was going to go down, after all, and this simply didn’t fit.

But that could only be so much of a consolation when Crowley knew well enough, knew from experience, that it could very well be _nearly_ the end of the world, could very well be the end of the world for all but a chosen few that the Almighty deemed worthy enough to live through the catastrophe.

(Crowley wasn’t sure, really, which was worse, dying as so many others did around you or having to watch and wait and _live_ while everyone else didn’t. He only knew the latter role, and didn’t much care for it himself, but apparently the Almighty thought it was preferable to the alternative, or else it wouldn’t be the most righteous humans of the lot who had to go through it.)

Crowley had checked around the Earth and could confirm that the plague was to some extent a local event. The Americas were untouched by it, and it was unheard of in Australia; it was only Europe, and to some extent Asia, that was suffering so greatly because of it, where it had become a pandemic that would change the course of history forever.

But then again, the Flood had _started_ in Mesopotamia...

Eventually, of course, unlike with the Flood, it turned out that people lived--not everyone, of course, but a large chunk of people, the majority even, not just a single family handpicked from above.

But also unlike the Flood, the Black Death wasn’t a forty days and done deal. Every time it seemed to be waning, a new wave would arrive somewhere in Europe, killing hundreds or thousands before fading away again. The plague doctors in their funny masks tended to those who were ill and dying, and they did their work as best they could and good on them for trying to help rather than just shrugging their shoulders and giving up, but they didn’t really know what they were dealing with except in the most general of terms, and that ignorance was made clear enough in their results. With each new wave of plague, Crowley wondered if this was the beginning of the almost-end, if this would be the one that more or less wiped humanity’s slate clean...

...until there were no new waves of plague for days, weeks, months, years, and when it eventually _did_ come back some years or decades or centuries down the line, it was much more contained, a mere reminder of the horrors that had come before.

Some people would try to block such a horrific event out of their memory after it had passed. Perhaps that was the route Aziraphale had chosen; Crowley didn’t know. But for his part, as centuries went by, whenever Crowley started to feel bad about his present situation, he would think back and remember, well, at least it isn’t the fourteenth century anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, consider following me on tumblr at [haberdashing](https://haberdashing.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
